Conventionally, as one method to diagnose a cardiac function using an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, a diagnostic method referred to as a stress echo method has been performed. The stress echo method is a diagnostic method to evaluate the motor function of myocardium by exerting a stress load such as an exercise load and a drug load on a subject and using ultrasonic image data collected before and after stress loading.
To evaluate the cardiac function objectively and quantitatively, available is a technology to obtain motion information on tissue of the heart such as displacement and strain. This technology is to estimate the movement of the heart by collecting ultrasonic image data of the heart in time series, performing pattern matching of a local region on ultrasonic images, and tracking the local region. Furthermore, the evaluation of the motor function of the heart is also performed by collecting and comparing pieces of the motion information on the heart before and after stress loading.